


The Great Red Dragon

by TheGoodDoctor



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Claustrophobia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, discussion of Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 09:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14871555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: Malcolm and Lucas get stuck in a lift and in a difficult conversation about tattoos and Blake and heroism.





	The Great Red Dragon

It’s bad. Malcolm knows it is. The fact that it’s fairly often bad does little to comfort him.

He allows Lucas to haul him along by the wrist, trying his level best to propel himself along at a speed even slightly like Lucas’. Barely able to get his legs under him as he runs, the only thing that he can really manage to think is:  _ this is bad. _

Not eloquent, admittedly, but true, and he’s a desk jockey and getting on, not a spry field agent. Malcolm never was. He’s had basic training, of course, and he’s not useless; he can shoot and run and jump far better than most his age, but not necessarily better than the mob goons pursuing them.

Lucas grunts, one hand grabbing the corner to swing them around as he glances behind. Malcolm can hear the pounding footsteps and hasn’t the time or energy to spare, so is content to simply clock Lucas’ clenched jaw and renewed energy and take that as a sign that things continue to be bad.

Then things get worse. They skid to a halt at a dead end, facing only the lifts. They’re very lucky to have bought a bit of time, but it can’t last. “We can’t take them,” Lucas says, and Malcolm spares a thought to be cross with how not out of breath he is. “They’ll have people on each floor - we’ll be trapped.”

Hands on his knees, bent double and chest heaving, Malcolm has a really bad idea and slams the call button.

Lucas looks at him in confusion. “I can’t run anymore,” Malcolm confesses. “Just - trust me.”

The agent pauses, then nods. Malcolm isn’t sure what sells him on the idea: trust, or the truth of his inability. Boots fall heavy behind them, getting closer, and Lucas hustles Malcolm closer to the doors, ready to shove him in, and then several things happen at once.

The lift dings, an odd piece of normality in an otherwise extraordinary situation. The footfalls get louder than ever and the first few people round the corner as the door opens. The doors open. There is gunfire, rapid and sharp, there are arms shoving and pulling him into the lift, there is yelling.

The doors close and the lift starts to ascend. Malcolm doesn’t spare a moment, slamming the emergency stop button and working via his pocket computer before the lift has even shuddered to a complete stop. “Call CO19,” Malcolm says, still tapping away furiously, when Lucas starts to say something. “Get Harry to send people to pick us up, I’ll jam the lift until they do.”

“Malcolm,” Lucas says, slightly incredulous, “have you really just trapped a claustrophobe and someone in urgent need of medical attention in a lift indefinitely?”

_ Medical atten-? _ This makes Malcolm look up from his screen at last in confusion. Lucas looks fine, if a little twitchy already, but then he glances toward Malcolm’s upper arm and when Malcolm follows his gaze he sees a hole in his shirt and a dark red stain spreading from it.

“Oh,” he says, rather absently, and then Lucas has to surge forward to catch both him and computer as his legs give out under him. Lucas lets him sit, propping him up against the walls of the lift, since there’s no way Malcolm can do much more than that just now. It hurts. A lot. There’s an odd rushing in his ears as he stares, uncomprehending, at his bloody shirt but he can vaguely hear Lucas speaking, rapid and urgent, as the spy rips Malcolm’s shirt to get a better look at the gaping hole in his arm. The dark blood makes his skin look even paler, dripping sluggishly down his arm.

“-alcolm? Malcolm, listen to me,” Lucas is saying, and he tears his eyes away from the wound to look at Lucas as the noise recedes from his ears. Lucas rips the sleeve off and wads it up, giving it to Malcolm. “Put pressure on it, as much as you can bear. CO19 are on their way.”

“Right,” Malcolm says, taking the cloth. “Pressure.” The pain, when he does, is excruciating and he tries to muffle his whimper.

Lucas must have heard anyway because he offers a comforting smile. “It’s alright, you’re going to be okay. Not long.”

Harry’s voice, tinny and small, pipes up from the mobile Lucas has left beside them on the floor. “Malcolm? Status, please.”

Malcolm knows this is so that Harry can gauge how he is by the response, how alert and aware he is, so he tries really hard to say something intelligent. “Ow,” he manages, a rather whinging note to his voice. He sighs, disappointed with his brain. There’s a pause from Harry, but he catches Lucas’ eye and the other man laughs, bright and happy and Malcolm thinks that maybe the disappointment was worth it.

“He’ll be alright,” Lucas says, grinning and tugging his collar over his head.

“What’s going on?” Harry asks, clearly hoping for something better from Malcolm.

“Lucas is taking his shirt off,” Malcolm says honestly, because it’s true and he hasn’t the faintest idea what else is going on to warrant this.

“I’m sorry?” Ros, this time, incredulous and as confused as Malcolm.

“Jealous?” Lucas says, grinning and beginning to rip the shirt into long strips.

“Oh, endlessly,” Ros says dryly. “You know I’m dying for a shag in a lift that might restart at any minute and open on either the mob or CO19.”

This earns some rather childish giggling from both Lucas and Malcolm, even as the latter’s face screws up in discomfort at just the idea. “The lift won’t restart until I let it, thank you,” Malcolm says at last.

Lucas raises an eyebrow, cuff in his mouth and tugging hard. “Sure? You were bleeding out a bit at that point.”

Malcolm gives him an unimpressed look and Lucas grins apologetically around the cloth. “Lucas is making bandages, by the way,” he says, for the benefit of the phone.

“What blessed relief,” Harry says, completely monotone, and Lucas ducks his head, grinning. The gesture is so familiar as to be almost painful and Malcolm spares a bittersweet smile for the messy-haired, laugh-at-anything Lucas this man used to be, before. Then he hasn’t time to feel sorry for him, busy hissing through his teeth and feeling sorry for himself as Lucas moves his hand and wraps a strip of shirt around the wound. He pulls tight and Malcolm’s vision whites out, a ringing in his ears as pain, white-hot and sharp, ripples outward from his gunshot wound. When he blinks his eyes open again Lucas is looking rather apologetic and he can hear Harry talking.

“-have to leave you to it. Call if you need anything, CO19 will let you know when you can get out.”

“Copy that,” Lucas says and hangs up. He picks up another makeshift bandage, frowning as the light blue already wrapped around Malcolm’s upper arm turns an unpleasant purple colour.

Malcolm holds up a hand. “Do that again and I’ll pass out, Lucas, I swear,” he threatens.

Lucas nods, frowning. He gets up, circling the small space and inspecting the walls.

Malcolm remembers what he had said earlier - claustrophobe. “How are you doing, Lucas?” he says, partly to take his mind off the blood that has seeped through the bandage on to his hand.

“Fabulous, thanks,” Lucas says insincerely, not looking at Malcolm. “Ah.” He pops a panel out of the wall and removes a first aid kit, kneeling back beside Malcolm and his pile of ruined shirt.

“This really is going to hurt, isn’t it,” Malcolm states, looking sadly at the antiseptic that Lucas pulls out after discarding some small plasters with a look of annoyance.

“Sorry,” Lucas says, removing the bandages he had put on. Malcolm’s breath whistles through his teeth sharply and he digs his fingers into his thigh. “Talk to me, Malcolm, stay awake.”

“I haven’t a particular talent for small talk,” he says between gasps as Lucas efficiently swabs his arm clean. It hurts excessively with each swipe and burns afterwards.

Lucas looks around the room for inspiration before looking down at himself and huffing a laugh. “Go on, then, code-breaker: what do my tattoos mean?”

Malcolm blinks, surprised. He wouldn’t have thought Lucas would want to talk about it, even if it kept his patient awake, but he hasn’t any better ideas so he focuses his eyes on the far wall and tries not to think about the blinding pain caused by whatever Lucas is doing to his arm. “Well, you’ve one dome for each year you spent - over there. That’s fairly common for Russian prisons.”

Lucas looks up, smiling slightly. “Familiar, are you?”

Malcolm tries not to squirm, knowing how much it would hurt. “Jo looked it up,” he admits. “She saw them once, got curious, tried to get the rest of us to tell her what they might mean.” Lucas is still smiling and Malcolm has to look away. “I didn’t want to - speculate, but she told me about a couple. I didn’t want to know, really. It felt too much like-”

“Spying?” Lucas says, amused.

“Gossiping,” Malcolm corrects sharply, wincing as Lucas goes back to work. “Dum spiro, spero is obvious, I suppose.”

“While I live, I hope.”

“While I breathe, actually.”

Lucas’ hands still. “Is it? Shit. I’ve said it wrong so many times.”

Malcolm huffs a shaky laugh and Lucas joins him. “The dots represent the walls and prisoner,” he says, nodding to Lucas’ wrist. “Fairly common for prisoners.”

“Not very original, admittedly,” he says, tightening the binding he’s currently applying, “but true. Gnothi seuton, then?”

Malcolm sighs, trying to wrestle his thoughts away from  _ painpainpainjustgotosleep _ and towards his vague recollections of greek. “Know...thyself?” he says through gritted teeth. Lucas nods, giving him an encouraging smile. Malcolm thinks he might get shot more often, if he can keep having these scraps of boyish, smiling Lucas thrown his way. “I can’t figure your arm, though,” he says, reaching up with his index finger to tap the inside of Lucas’ bicep where cyrillic letters curl incomprehensibly. “Never was any good at Russian.”

“See nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing to anyone,” Lucas grunts and Malcolm bites back a howl of pain at whatever his hands are doing. But then Lucas leans back, apparently content to leave his poor arm alone for now. “Seemed like rather good advice and the burn helped me remember it.”

“I am sorry, Lucas,” Malcolm says, eyelids drooping as the other man shuffles to the other side of the lift to avoid eye contact, not offering a response to Malcolm’s words.

“Hey.” Lucas kicks his ankle gently when it looks like Malcolm might fall asleep. “No resting your eyes. You have to distract me from how small this fucking lift is.”

“Sorry,” Malcolm says out of habit, using his good arm to sit up a little straighter, and Lucas tips his head back against the wall, eyes shut and grinning. “Right, uh, Omerta - that’s clear. Didn’t know MI5 was the Mafia now, though.”

Lucas cracks open one eye and pins Malcolm with it. “You’d rather I told the other inmates of the Russian prison to tattoo  _ don’t talk about being a member of MI5 _ on my arm?”

Malcolm nods in concession and the eye closes again. Lucas’ leg is shuddering slightly, fingers stabbing a frantic tattoo into the floor and Malcolm keeps talking to distract him from his issues. “Your right wrist means peace, doesn’t it? And the boat, that’s a desire to escape.”

“In Russian prison language, yes.” Lucas doesn’t open his eyes and Malcolm doesn’t know if this is good or not. He reaches up and uses two fingers to blindly tap his left bicep, perfectly hitting the eight-pointed star there, and Malcolm isn’t sure he wants to know how much they had hurt, if Lucas knows their exact locations even in the dark. “This one means I was an authority, which I was, for a bit.”

“For a bit?” Malcolm can’t help but ask, confident though he is that he won’t like the answer.

Lucas shrugs, faux-nonchalant. “Got put in solitary fairly quickly after that. Can’t think why the FSB weren’t fans.” There is a pause as Malcolm digests what the other man isn’t saying, bile rising in his throat. “One more, Malcolm,” Lucas says, that same feigned cheeriness infecting his voice. “Don’t tell me you haven’t spotted it.”

“Ancient of Days,” Malcolm says promptly. “It’s Blake, isn’t it. Your favourite poet.”

Lucas’ eyes open. “You don’t sound sure,” he says, curious.

Malcolm shrugs one shoulder. “It’s not an obvious choice. Elizabeta always said you liked Blake because he distrusted systems and you don’t either. The Ancient, or Urizen, was the antagonist of Blake’s Prophecies; he represents order and creates stagnation.”

Lucas smiles. “You’ve done your homework. You weren’t such a bookworm back in the day.”

Malcolm looks down, away. “I missed you,” he mumbles at last. It’s the most he can say about the long evenings hiding away from his mother, nose pressed into anthologies to feel some semblance of closeness to his friend, lost and alone, far from the comforts of this green and pleasant land.

Lucas seems to sense that here endeth this particular display of emotion and doesn’t press, for which Malcolm is grateful. He gestures with one hand for him to continue instead, wrist propped up on one bended knee.

“Well, Urizen isn’t the picture of anarchy a Blake fan would pick, if he really did distrust systems.” Malcolm shifts, winces, listens to the fans hum as he collects his thoughts. “Urizen is the picture  _ of  _ a system, really. No self-respecting anarchist would tattoo it on his chest.”

“Perhaps I just thought it was pretty,” Lucas says dryly, a teasing note to his voice inviting Malcolm to push.

“Well, it’s no Turner,” and Lucas laughs, eyes falling closed again. “I can’t believe that prison left you with a love of stagnating under authority-” Lucas raises his eyebrows briefly “-so is this a reminder, like the others?”

“Of?”

“What to trust? Can’t you trust MI5?” Malcolm frowns. “Lucas, you’ve spent your whole adult life upholding a system for the benefit of this country.”

“I know, I’m a terrible anarchist,” he says, without much unhappiness.

“Is that why, then?” Lucas flinches almost imperceptibly and Malcolm knows he’s right. “You tattooed the antagonist of your favourite poet on your chest because you think you might be the villain, here,” he says softly.

There is a pause. And then, ever so quietly: “aren’t we?” Lucas drops his head into his hands, folding in on himself, as Malcolm watches in dawning sympathetic horror. “So many people, Malcolm,” he says, voice muffled and thick. “So many people have died, and for what? The notion of a nation, a tiny rock in the sea with delusions of grandeur, pretending it’s 1850 and we still matter in world politics. We just uphold the system,” he says, gesturing about him absently and staring at the cool metal floor, “and nothing ever changes.”

“You are not the villain,” Malcolm says, leaning forward. His tone is forceful enough to raise Lucas’ head, dark eyes gazing out unhappily through his fringe. “You’ve saved more lives than you’ve stopped, and those for a good cause. You may not be a good anarchist, but you  _ are  _ a good man. And if I had my way you’d get a medal big enough to cover that damn tattoo.”

Lucas manages the ghost of a smile. “You don’t like it?”

Malcolm rolls his eyes and leans back, careful not to knock his arm which, now he remembers to think about it, hurts like hell. “How did it go with the therapist?”

Lucas leans back too, groaning as his head thuds against the wall. “Haven’t CO19 dealt with everything yet? Can I leave this conversation?” Malcolm gives him a chiding look and he gives in. “O Lucas, thou art sick,” he quotes with wry resignation. “I’ve marks of weakness, marks of woe to last a lifetime, but she seems to think it’ll all be alright in the end.”

“I’m here if you want to talk,” Malcolm says, and Lucas’ head rolls against the wall to fix his gaze on him. “Can’t promise I’ll be any good, but I can listen.”

After a pause that’s just a second too long, Lucas smiles slightly - odd and lopsided and genuinely affectionate. “Thanks.”

Malcolm nods and they sit in the silence. He needs it, honestly, to digest everything his friend has and has not told him; to understand what he’s admitted, and then to compartmentalise and file it away. He thinks Lucas needs it too.

“So,” Lucas says eventually, and Malcolm remembers the poor boy’s claustrophobia with a stab of guilty sympathy as his fingers drum repeatedly against his tattoo of a boat, the one that means  _ escape. _ “What  _ did  _ you think of Blake, really?”

“Awful,” Malcolm says without a second’s hesitation and Lucas sputters, sitting up straight from his slump against the wall for the first time since he sat. “Whiny bugger, isn’t he, and hellishly pretentious. Half the time he sounds like a sixties hippie, and they were annoying enough the first time I had to deal with them.”

Lucas sits and gapes at him for a moment, before throwing back his head and howling with laughter. He’s still laughing when Harry calls to let them know the building is secure and they can escape the lift, infectious enough that Malcolm’s grin can probably be heard down the line - Harry’s, when he signs off, is distinctly audible.

The ambulance sorts out his arm properly while Lucas shivers, shirtless and cold. His tattoos earn him a fair few second looks. “I’ll have to think of a new meaning,” he says.

Malcolm shrugs the shoulder not in the firm and capable hands of a terrifying matronly nurse. “It may not be a Turner, but it could just be for its own sake.”

Lucas frowns down at his chest and purses his lips. “No,” he says, in the end. “I think I’ll always think of you, now.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Oh, now I’m the villain associated with constricting systems. Thanks awfully.”

Lucas smirks. “You’re welcome. No. I’ll think of this,” he says, gesturing around them to the ambulance and building and swarms of CO19. “Of what would have happened if we hadn’t been here. Maybe I am a bad anarchist,” he says, staring out over the crowd, spine straight and profile stark against the dark clouds overhead. “But I think I can cope with that.”

Malcolm lets the nurse strap his arm to his chest and stands. “Come on, then. I’ll buy you some chips on the way back to the Grid.”

Lucas grins, bright and shining, showing him a countenance so happy Malcolm is half-tempted to call it  _ divine. _

**Author's Note:**

> i've looked at this man's chest for way too long throughout the course of writing this.  
> my gratitude goes out to these websites for helping me through the maze of blake and prison code:  
> https://ancient-ofdays.dreamwidth.org/762.html  
> https://armitageagonistes.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/that-darn-tat-the-lucas-northwilliam-blake-case-revisited/  
> http://cdoart.blogspot.com/2010/12/symbolic-importance-of-william-blakes.html


End file.
